


on this night of a thousand stars

by stellatiate



Series: anthologie [2]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-16
Updated: 2014-06-21
Packaged: 2018-02-04 23:07:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 5,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1796626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stellatiate/pseuds/stellatiate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>a love story in reverse, a universe held within a single touch.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. forget-me-nots

**Author's Note:**

> just a casual reminder that this will be in reverse order, so there isn't as much confusion.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> for _true love_ and _memories_.

“Do I know you?”

 _Not now_ , he thinks to himself, his lips pressed into a harsh frown, _not_ ever. Levi angles his head around to look at her, rose-red lips and flushed cheeks and inky hair wrapped into a braided bun. Her smile is wide and innocent, and staring at the intricate beauty of her face is what forces out his terse reply.

“I _definitely_ think I—”

“No.” It softens, slightly, but then, “and don’t _bother_.”

Her face falls and she brings her hands from her sides to interlace in front of her legs, looking away from him. And even though they are in a public place, Levi feels so crowded from the memories and the burden of doing what he thinks is right for her, and he imagines the fairytale bullshit of the absence of one’s other half.

Absolute bullshit because he wishes there was an empty place in his life, somewhere that she could be missing, because Levi has lived his entire life in want for many things. But this overwhelming, overflowing of memories and emotions and desire to just _touch her hand_ is suffocating him, smothering him, _drowning_ him.

She tucks a stray piece of hair behind her ear and despite everything, smiles to herself.

And as much as he wants to touch her, he wants to protect that smile.

 _What sappy, shitty feelings_ , is all he can think to himself before he walks away.


	2. gladioli

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> for _love at first sight_ and _strength_.

Levi wants nothing more in the world than to be left alone, but he knows that she will not allow for such a thing to happen. And part of him wants to be grateful to Hanji, because without her, he couldn’t shoulder all of this alone, but there was still so much pressure, still so much to do.

And somehow, she found the strength to be seated on the edge of his bed, smiling with her hands clasped in her lap, glasses wiggling on the tip of her nose.

“Don’t you wanna fall in _love_ with me, Levi?” Hanji squeals from a perch on the bed and when Levi swats at her, her glasses topple onto the floor. She leans over and swipes her hands around on the floor until she grabs them again, shuffles them back onto her face.

“You can’t go anywhere else and be a colossal, useless shit or is it only here?”

“C’mon,” she squirms to the edge of the bed, pulls him in close, “I’m being serious. Sort of.” She gives a good yank and Levi sighs, lands on the opposite side of her. “Did you really fall in love with her? Are you ready to give everything away to her completely?”

 He wants to say no. But it would be a lie and whatever restraint, whatever strength it takes to whistle a lie between his lips and keep up with it is no longer there for him.

“It’s stupid, isn’t it.” It’s almost a question to which Hanji has an answer, but instead she links their arms together, nudges him until he drops his head onto her shoulder.

“Hey,” she says quietly, tilting her head to tap the top of his, “it’s not stupid, Levi. I was really enamored with you when we first met and touched and all of that too,” she smiles at the memories, “and it seemed like a lot, finding you, you know? But we’re better friends, to me. It was better. But if you love her, you can’t just—”

“I _have_ to. I’m ruining her _life_ , Hanji.”

“Levi, you can’t just give up, you _love_ her.”

He snaps up, anger rolling off of him in waves, body tense at her side. “Why do you keep saying that? I don’t even _know_ her, I don’t. She is a brand new girl, all the same way that you are, well—”

(“Finally a girl,” she says with relief.)

“— _whatever_. I can see it when I’m near her. I don’t give a fuck, I would never give a fuck, I just can’t take it, the weakness and the crying and all of that bloody monster fighting bullshit in our dreams—I _can’t_. So are you okay with it or not?”

“You’re not even going to tell her, you’re just going to do it?”

“Are you okay with it?”

“No. But I’ll do it, Levi,” Hanji sighs, frowns in his direction, “you know I will. I owe you everything. But she should know, she should know that you’re going to erase that link between the two of you.”

And even though Hanji is right, Levi knows that’s the whole _point_. She can _never_ know.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> all the happiness in the world for non-binary transwoman hanji! reincarnated, kind of.


	3. apple blossoms

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> for _good fortune_ and _hope_.

The dreams start the very next day.

Mikasa wakes up with her eyes wide and sweat dripping down her temple, smooth grey sheets in a desperate tangle around her ankles. She reaches out and the first thing she grasps is Levi’s forearm, wrenches him over to her and slumps herself into his body. And though he is mostly delirious with sleep holding his eyes shut, he folds his arms around her and buries his face into the side of her neck, his voice a whisper trailing up to her ear.

“What the _hell_ , Mikasa?”

Her hands are sticky with sweat in their vice grip around his arm and Levi’s face is creased with frustration until he notices her shaking beside him, completely distraught, and showing every single sign for night terrors that he’s ever seen.

“I—” Her eyes search the expanse of his face deeply, as if there is some answer rooted within the steel of his eyes. “Do you believe we knew each other before today?”

Levi blinks once and then again, just to make sure he’s actually conscious and not asleep. But Mikasa is watching him closely, so he clicks his tongue against the back of his teeth dismissively.

“Isn’t that the whole basis of our relationship?”

And it is a callous thing to say because he can feel her recoil the moment the words settle inside of her head, trying to unfold herself from his grasp to look him in the eye, to understand what it is that’s going through his head.

“You truly think that?”

He knows it’s wrong, but to a degree, he can’t help but feel that way. “As if we’d have ever spoken if it wasn’t for that distinct feeling that we already knew each other.” Even in these moments, he speaks with the ease of lifetimes passed; every single touch of their skin brings a new assault of memories down over them. He can’t help but feel as though he’s loved her in the most secretive, all-consuming ways, like some private affection not acknowledged for fear of demeaning, debasing its purity.

Levi hasn’t felt anything like that _ever_.

“So, do you think I love you because we already loved each other? Because—”

“It doesn’t _matter_ , okay? Are you having nightmares? One or two of them and suddenly you want to have some damn existential conversation about our _fate_.”

And Mikasa prickles up immediately, glaring at him, freeing herself from his embrace. “I love _you_ ,” and he can hear the vulnerability in her voice, “not any part of you I think I know from some other life. I love the punctual, irritable bus patron, even if you’re a harmful little shit who thinks I’m nothing but a stupid, fate-spun little _girl_.”

“Shut up,” is his retaliatory remark, “I didn’t mean it entirely that way. I just think you love me and this concept helps drive it home for you, but maybe there are just—”

She is still beside him in bed, but he can feel her slipping away already.

“—some lifetimes where maybe we don’t need to fall in love. Where we can’t, or we shouldn’t, because sometimes fate is a cruel bitch.”

Time turns inside out for a moment because Levi can feel everything within him seize, he can see the freeze in Mikasa’s features, in her movements, and then she is pulling herself to the edge of the bed, tripping and mumbling quietly to herself.

“If all it takes is some stupid nightmare to dispel everything, then I don’t think we don’t need to fall in love, either.” She doesn’t cry; she won’t start crying for him, not in any lifetime, not for _any_ reason. “I’m sorry I already fell. And I’m sorry for wasting your time, I hope someone else is better for you than I thought I was. Honestly, I do.”

Levi watches her go solemnly, and it isn’t until she closes the door behind her that he replays the vivid nightmare in his mind.

…

He shouldn’t want to talk to her. But he does, and seeing her stand on the other end of the crowded bus stop does nothing for his sensibilities. Levi grits his teeth as he walks onto the bus and eyes the empty seat beside her.

A braid slices through the side part of her hair, pinned back behind her ear, her face surprisingly vacant and calm. She doesn’t look over her shoulder at Levi the way he looks at her, doesn’t so much as glance at him.

It surprises him, but it reminds him in a startling instance; as much as it makes sense, she was right—she had a life before they met in any universe, she was on this bus for years with him before he’d ever even noticed her beyond some strange, pretty commuter.

Levi slips a folded square of paper onto the seat beside her and shoulders past her to sit in the back.

He hopes she reads it.

…

 _Scouting Legion. Titans. Your friend_ Eren _. Endangered humanity. Apocalypse. Child soldiers. Military. Corporal. 3DMG. Sword fighting. Harness. Death. Dismemberment. Death._

 _I_ died _for you._

_I die every night for you._

…

“You dream too.”

He’s surprised to see her at his door after an entire week; Levi promised he’d leave her alone if she chose not to talk to him about his note to her, and he’d stuck to that for the last few days.

But she was standing in his doorway, hair falling over her shoulders in messy array, eyes avoiding his.

“You’re an absolute piece of shit, you know,” Mikasa says, stepping past him and walking into his apartment. One of her fists is closed around his note, though it is crumpled between the crooks of her fingers, he can’t help but keep his eyes trained on it. “I saw it last night, too. I saw that thing tear you off of the ground by your cape. It’s the only thing I can see when I look at you.”

And it makes sense now, the lack of eye contact, the avoidance, but _still_. Levi can’t help but feel as though he is hurting her, making this all so much worse.

“I’m sorry, you know.”

“Don’t be,” is her immediate response, “I knew what I was getting into with this. With you. Though it doesn’t mean you were right about our relationship.”

Levi thinks he might be inclined to agree.


	4. daffodils, narcissus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> for _prosperity_ and _rebirth_. _not safe for work_.

It happens so _fast_.

There are parts of her that feel as if she has fallen head over heels for a stranger, but being around him is salvation, it is the distinct feeling of her wandering, homesick heart returning to its habitat, to where it has always belonged.

She never thought she could be homesick for a person, especially one she never really had time to know, never really had time to miss.

“This is stupid,” he mumbles into the crease of her neck, grunts when she buries the heels of her feet into the small of his back, and the way he spreads his fingers along her back to cup her body closer sends shivers down her spine.

Mikasa is the one who kisses him, she is _always_ the one who kisses him, firm, smooth lips and full of confidence. But it is Levi who drags her into his arms, who lets her wind her legs around his waist and crush their bodies together. She grates her hips forward and Levi lets out another hiss of air, curls his fingers around the straps of her nightgown.

“It’s not,” she twists herself in his lap, pushes her hands between their bodies to tear their clothes away, “you _know_ it’s not.”

And it hardly matters because Levi doesn’t stop, no matter how stupid he thinks it is, because it doesn’t _feel_ stupid. Mikasa’s grip closes around the hem of his boxers and she rolls them over his hips, tips her body into his lap so he teeters close to his back, and yanks the offending material off.

“So,” he drawls, his breath quickening with each passing moment, “you just have sex with strangers whene—” and he barely catches his breath when her smooth, ridged palm rubs against his erection, slides over him with a slow-burning ease, her hips rocking back and forth subconsciously.

And it doesn’t matter for a moment because she just wants to be close to him, so close that her body, her thoughts are on autopilot.

“We had to have done _this_ before,” she whispers hoarsely, arching her back when his hands slip her nightgown down her shoulders and wrap around her waist.

Levi’s hands cup over her breasts and massage idly, because she is the one with the control, with her hands wrapped around him so commandingly, and the rest of her being desperate to be in tandem with him.

She swivels her hips, hooks them into his back again, and draws herself across his lap, moaning immediately the moment he twitches between her legs in anticipation, already filled to the brink with pleasure, already dripping over the edge with arousal.

He sinks into her perfectly, a sword to its own sheath, and it just about melts her completely.

There are a few stunned moments of him with his hands around her waist, pulling her down onto him before she undulates her own hips, crashes their bones together as close as they will go, a painfully blissful collision, and the warmth of his breath on her neck makes her insatiable, only drills into her head that she wants _more_ , that they have to be _closer_ , that they can’t ever stop this.

Mikasa mumbles something with her head thrown back, her voice seized within this mind-blowingly passionate moment, and it seems so inconsequential that maybe they’ve only known each other a little over a month, because this is a lifetime of pleasure at the base of her spine and between her legs and pouring out of her mouth.

It is catastrophic pleasure, universally known to each and every version they have ever been on this Earth, every version of them that bothered to touch beyond timid kisses and interlaced hands.

“I love you,” Mikasa gasps out when he jerks his hips sharply, stabs his way into her, “ _I_ love you,” she repeats, because maybe he doesn’t know that she loves him now, in this moment, and not this soul of his that has followed her through each and every life they have ever lived.

Levi’s lips press against her lips and part on a moan of climax, and Mikasa knows he loves her too, knows he would say it if his throat wasn’t sealed shut from pleasure.

Mikasa knows he loves her, too.


	5. violets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> for _sincerity_ and _loyalty_.

“You spend so much time with him now, Mikasa.”

It doesn’t help that in the middle of their coffee date, her chin is nestled in the palm of her hand and her eyes are drifting amongst the clouds, thinking elsewhere.

“I guess I do,” she says pensively, flickering her eyes back to the small, round table between the two of them.

She’d always thought that Eren would be hers, from the moment they met and shared those exciting feelings through their fingertips. And maybe that’s all this life was meant to be, people wandering through one another’s existences, touching them and imparting them with a missing piece of themselves.

Eren lifts his coffee to his lips, looks over at her from behind the widened rim of the mug. “Well,” there is an angry blush hidden behind the porcelain, but she doesn’t take much notice and he is not willing to point it out, “I miss you, you know. I never get to see you anymore.”

It’s then that Mikasa turns away from the window, regards her best friend with an attentive glance.

“I’m sorry, Eren,” she reaches her hand over the table, brushes the tops of his knuckles. Her simple touch elicits a warmth inside of her, one she’d always sought from Eren during the hard times of her life, through all of the loss and stress and struggle.

But there is Levi to fill that gap now, even if each of his touches brings her a brand new mystery to solve; she wants to call it a novelty but it is more than that, it has been more than that for weeks, for months.

He sighs and curls his fingers into a fist, pulls it from underneath hers and crosses it over his chest. “Don’t be,” his smile is forced at best, shattered at worst, “you love him. I’ll always be here for you, Mikasa. I’ll always love you too.”

…

He notices it immediately, from the slant of her shoulders to the red marks gnawed into her lips to the way she is arranged underneath his sheets, like she is trying to cover some intimate part of herself.

“You okay?” His voice is heavy, edged with a sliver of concern, and he sits down beside her, doesn’t touch her, doesn’t even look at her.

He can tell it makes her feel just a little bit better that she is not underneath his scrutiny. Levi has grown slightly accustomed to spending all his waking hours with her, discovering all of these things together. But there is no way of telling her just how deep his mind has opened up, just how bottomless his memory has become.

There are things that he can see now, in his dreams, that frighten him.

“I had a love before you,” she says in a stunned voice, like she is merely a mannequin with an echo of recorded words behind her eyes, “and I think I lost him. Am losing him,” she adds, tucks her chin down to the tops of her knees.

Love is a heavy word in itself, and Levi doesn’t take in the implications of it, that she may be calling him her new love, that she had fallen in love once or twice or three times before him, because it doesn’t _matter_. He doesn’t care about trivial things like love, not when there is some subconscious connection between the two of them that renders something like love completely obsolete.

“You don’t lose love, it is always loyal, it will always belong to whomever you give it to. If he’s fading away…if _you’re_ fading away, then it wasn’t truly love. Not in the way you thought it might be.” And it’s sage advice for someone like Levi, who can be so easily removed from even his own emotions.

But it surprises him, because she laughs—a sharp, humorless noise—and then slides over until her head rests on his shoulder, her knees poking their way across his lap.

Mikasa takes a tiny breath, glances up at him. “He thinks I love you.”

“Don’t be stupid.”

“Maybe I am.”

“What?”

“Maybe I do.” She kisses his taut cheek, kisses his jaw, kisses the pulse of his neck. He feels so sturdy beside her, unmovable. So she can’t help it, she can’t help opening up and stretching herself around him, arms wound over his chest.

“You don’t know any better, then,” he says quietly, but he doesn’t turn her away.


	6. chrysanthemums

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> for _joy_ and _perfection_.

It takes them three days to agree on their first outing. An outing, because Levi refuses to allow her to call them dates, and she takes it in stride. But it means nothing, because Mikasa renders her hair in beautiful, spiraling curls, and marks her lips red for him. And even though they are having lunch in the park, the moment the sunlight spills over her, it illuminates her dress and her painted pretty face and Levi knows the depth of her intentions now.

They walk through the trails together. Levi watches her curiously from the corners of his eyes, unsure of what to say, but she walks with the faintest hints of a smile across her lips, mischievous fingers that occasionally brush across his knuckles, spark off a flash of memories between the two of them.

It doesn’t take long for her to open up; she tells him about her family, about her parents and how they died, she tells him about Eren, about how he has been everything for her, done everything for her ever since then. She tells him about how she was once so alone in this world and how she came to know her friends, her brand new hand-picked family.

And he listens. Levi takes in every part of her story, wonders how a girl like this ever fit into his life, in any life that he ever lived. She is wondrous, even throughout an eternity of loss, and he is certain that it is better he didn’t have much to begin with.

Something like that would collapse him, it would tear his soul to pieces.

Maybe that is why he decides to hold her hand after all.

(And for a split second, her eyes widen and her fingers lock in place and she turns her head to his. But Levi keeps walking, keeps his grip around her hand steady, and she folds her fingers over the back of his hand, releases all of the tension from her fingertips and simply goes along with it.)

For a moment, their memories link and their bodies lilt and all of these things come pouring into their heads, memories from another lifetime where all of their simple touches are full of condemnation or great sadness or substantial loss.

It filters away slowly after that, but neither of them are really in the mood to talk, so they walk through the rest of the trail, their hands held together comfortingly, an open well of emotions drowning the two of them, simultaneously. When they reach the end of the trail, she smiles, and it is red-lined and beautiful and fleeting.

She is a fool (because she takes his face into her hands and kisses his mouth firmly, and feels every kiss they have ever shared melt into the bottom of his stomach) and he is a fool (because he kisses her back, because she tips her head down to his mouth and he doesn’t push her away like he should).

And now, he suspects, they are dating. This is a date.

…

He’s almost sure he’s lost her already. But Eren knows better, he knows Mikasa is not some object for him to keep, that just because they have this special bond that she isn’t free to do as he pleases.

There is just something about the way her eyes light up when she speaks about him that unnerves Eren.

Mikasa props her head up with her hands cupping her chin and her elbows resting in the mattress, and Eren is beside her, watching intently. “I’ve never seen anything like it before,” she says quietly, reverently, “I’ve never met anyone like that.”

Some part of him spikes with jealousy for something like this, something he has never had before. But he sighs, tilts his head towards her. “Just be careful,” is all he can say. She smiles, leans her head over to kiss his cheek.

“I will be,” she says, “I promise.”

…

They come to find in the next few weeks that they enjoy themselves the most within the comfort of his apartment. And though Mikasa enjoys her dresses and her make up, it is so much easier to sprawl herself out across his couch with her feet in his lap and watch television, her hair in messy waves around her face and both of them wreathed in comfort.

It is familiar and easy and all it takes is a swivel and crawl across the couch before she can reach him, when she can reach him enough and kiss him square on the mouth. Coffee dates and walks in the park are enjoyable, but there is nothing better to her than falling asleep touching him, that familiar warmth and surge of foreign memories flowing through her.

Levi is simply enjoying the pleasantries, the memories that seem to brighten every part of him, every part of them _together_. And he doesn’t ever discuss their arrangement, doesn’t ever explain to her what exactly they’re doing with each other.

He’s certain there is no name for the kind of transcendental relationship that they have with each other, and to attempt to choose one is simply foolish. So he doesn’t.

He lets it exist the way that it already does, the way that it thrives the best, with them wrapped around one another on the couch, with Mikasa’s forward kisses and insatiable desire to be touched, with a quiet exchange of lifetimes and stories in the middle of the night when they touch, or simply when they whisper in the space between them.

…

“Levi,” she rasps, flips onto her stomach and cards her fingers through his hair.

The middle of the night is usually unkind to him and this night is no different from any other, any other night where his features cinch and his breathing is shallow and there is some unknown terror in his mind. Mikasa presses her mouth to his jaw, to his neck, curls her arms around his chest and squeezes him, twines her legs between his.

“Wake up,” she whispers into the shell of his ear, “wake up.” And she touches as much of herself to him as she can, until his body is surging with memories of the two of them instead, pushing all of those terrors out of his thoughts, bringing him back until he is blinking groggily and trying to control his hyperventilation.

“Hey,” she says when he steadies himself, when his eyes make contact with hers, and she detangles slightly, pulls her legs back and releases her grip around his chest, “it’s okay.” She curbs the apology on his lips with a curt nod and a smile.

“Don’t apologize,” she relaxes, lets her head fall into the crook of his neck, “that’s what I’m here for. Whenever you need someone to pull you back.”

Levi stares at her like she is an oasis in the desert, like she is his blood, like she has just saved his life, like he has never seen her before.

(He doesn’t know how to tell her that she is dead behind his eyes, in his dreams, in those terrors; that he is the one pulling her back in bloody green capes and she is heavy in his arms, that he has lost her in such a catastrophic way.)

He doesn’t tell her that she is simply returning the favor; everything, for now, can remain perfect.


	7. baby's breath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> for _family_ and _innocence_.

He doesn’t expect to see her so soon.

“Whatever it is this time, I—”

Levi is perched with a hand in the threshold of his apartment door, clad in nothing but shorts and a head of disheveled, messily cropped hair, and that girl— _Mikasa_ —is standing at his door in a summer sundress.

Her face tints pink and he notices how substantially made up she is, with red lips and even tones and subtly violet eyeshadow. “I thought you might live nearby, since you take the bus.”

He doesn’t have the proper time to address her any further before his mouth creases into a further glare, eyes boring into the heart shape of her face.

“Did you knock on every door in the damn apartment building or are you stalking me now?”

This time, Mikasa’s face flushes with an angry blush, her fists balled at her side. “No, I—I asked downstairs, no one had a problem finding a short, perpetually angry guy in the _entire_ building, apparently.”

“Tch,” Levi’s fingers tighten around the door knob, “get lost, little girl.”

He has no way of knowing what she’ll do, not until she lunges forward and grabs his arm, and her eyes widen, and he feels that darkness floating in the corner of his eyes. She knows it now, knows that he feels the exact same sensations as her, knows that he saw what she saw too.

Mikasa lets go and takes several steps back, her eyes still glass, still wide, still trained on him. “I thought…I didn’t know…”

“That you could have that connection with anyone else? You really are a little girl,” Levi raises an eyebrow towards her, moves past her to shut the door behind her. He doesn’t afford her any more attention than he would if she were completely inanimate, and he retreats back into the safety of his apartment, most likely to dress himself.

His state of undress is low on the list of her priorities, so she treks behind him, thoughts pouring out of her mouth. “I didn’t think I could—and I’ve never _seen_ anything before, not like that, not with anyone else.” Her face reddens again, and she turns her head to the side, leans against the threshold of his room.

Levi moves about the meticulously clean room, scoops up a shirt and pulls it over his head. “Listen, Mika—”

“Mi _ka_ sa,” she enunciates in correction, and his face crinkles.

“Mikasa,” he repeats, “I know this is a lot for you. Hell, I don’t just _touch_ people either, not strangers, and the fact that we’ve _seen_ things, that doesn’t mean shit.”

She moves to sit beside him on the bed, a handful of space between them, her expression earnest. Levi tries to ignore the beauty in her face now that she is so close to him. “But I want to know. I want to know what it is, I want to learn. It does mean something, because…something like that wouldn’t just _happen_ to be dismissed. We’re connected in some different way, different than everyone else I’ve ever known.”

It is a valid point. Levi turns to her side, creases his lips into a frown. “What do you suggest, then? Mikasa?” He tries her name out on his lips correctly this time and he finds that he quite likes it.

She worries her bottom lip between her teeth, scoots closer to him, and Levi immediately tenses, prepares himself for another flash of darkness behind his eyes, another unwanted vision of some twisted past of theirs, but it never comes.

“Maybe we should get to know one another. As friends.”


	8. lilies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> for _friendship_ and _freedom_.

“Do I know you?”

The last thing Levi wants as he waits at the bus stop at seven o’clock in the morning is to have a conversation, and he fully intends to brush it off, except the voice is closer now, standing directly in front of him when it adds, “I _definitely_ think I know you.”

A girl. Her hair is dark, like shadows, like ink. It falls over her shoulders in waves, cuts in front of her eyes and slips down her cheeks to frame her face. Her smile is wide and innocent and her eyes are trained on him.

The strangest thing—more strange than this girl, more strange than her sudden question, more strange than this chance meeting—is that Levi feels as though he _does_ know her. And not in the sense that he has met her and shoved her name and job title into the back of his brain, but than on some primal, unrecognizable level, she is a part of his life, has always been a part of his life.

“I’m Mikasa,” she says before he can stop her, before she can stop herself, and she holds her hand out for him with that radiant smile on her lips.

Levi narrows his eyes at her hand as the bus skids to a stop behind them, and despite his better judgment, he extends his hand to shake hers.

And everything goes black.

…

It feels like a lifetime of memories flashing before his eyes, before _her_ eyes, full of phantasmagorical images and a well of emotions and trickles of blood between it all. And he _thinks_ he can see snippets of things, like sky-high monsters and flying through the trees and standing atop steaming carcasses, he thinks he can feel steaming blood on his face and this girl’s hand in his hand and a fistful of dark hair and a patch cut out of worn material.

…

Levi blinks furiously and is met with her cloud-gray eyes staring at him in shock, her hands in recoil against her chest.

“Hey,” the bus driver barks from behind them, and they both startle, lurching forward slightly, “you two coming or what?”

She is the one who moves forward first without delay, not bothering to look back, not bothering to say anything else. And with all the irony in the world, Levi stands still, lets the bus pull off, and walks away.

He knows it won’t be the last time he sees her.

(In this lifetime, or the _next_.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank everyone so much for their feedback and for the support! and another beautiful rivamika week, even though i was all over the place with it.


End file.
